When It’s Good, It’s Good, When It’s BAD, It’s Better…

In this issue of TidBits I focus the topics on various online newspapers, oppose to being all over the road, like I usually am. Enjoy:

Huffington Post: I was first introduced to HuffPo back during the 2008 elections, because they seemed to have a more indepth (and far more liberally slanted) reporting on the campaigns than the New York Times did. This is because unlike The Times, HuffPo is a fucking tabloid. A tabloid, not in the sense of layout, but a tabloid in the sense that everything they publish is utter garbage and a glorification of shock-media.

Go to their site and likely on the front page “above the fold” you’ll find some colorful headline, with shocking allegations/implications/ramifications. I’m sure today, 20NOV09, it’ll be something like “OPRAH QUITS!” or “GOLDMAN SACHS QUITS!” You get the idea. The only people that should be quitting Huffington Post though are us. Really, stop reading this trash.

The only real redeeming aspect of Huffington Post is it’s ‘Entertainment’ section, where on occasion they’ll post NSFW photos of quasi-famous people from European magazines. If not for this section, I’d never known that Lady GaGa has pancake titties.

That being said, the Entertainment Section is rife with even more shit I don’t care about, to wit: Amy Winehouse BACK in rehab. Lindsay Lohan looks strung out and too-skinny. Some European model is doing coke on a yacht in the Mediterranean. Levi Johnston’s cock is out for everyone to see, etc etc.

The worst crime perpetrated by Huffington Post, by far, is it’s line up of guest bloggers. It seems that anyone under the sun, myself likely included, can submit their blogs and they’ll run on HuffPo. A lot of these blogs are maybe 400 words in length, baseless, whiny, complainy, and ultra liberal. And when you sprinkle into the mix CELEBRITIES, well, hold me down Jethro, let me beat feet over and see what the likes of Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, and fucking-a-christ Fitty Cent have to say about topics including and not limited to: The Environment, television, and polar bears.

We all know that if you give a celebrity of any size caliber a mouth piece they will talk non-stop on subjects they know little about. They will regurgitate talking points garnered at parties and shit they heard on Keith Olberman two nights ago. They then turn around and fill up space on Huffington Post with the same shit, so that simple-minded office drones (like myself) stuck in front of a computer all day, will read that shit and puke it back up during a conversation with our spouses, co-workers and mistresses.

JUST BECAUSE GEORGE CLOONEY SAID SOMETHING, DOESN’T MEAN IT’S RIGHT! He’s a handsome man, no doubt, but that doesn’t make him Jesus.

Slate: Slate strikes me as the type of online magazine that only people who want to pretend they care about important shit read. If you scan over it’s front page there’s a splash of multiple graphic-headlines along with a side bar that represents the latest stories to appear on Slate, called “The Slatest” which is fucking cute.

Scrolling over the tops of the subject columns, you get drop down menus from the latest articles being written in each subject matter. What really catches my eye are the “explainer” articles, where someone asks a question regarding current events (my favorite so far has been “What makes a gun a ‘cop-killer’ gun?” to which I would’ve simply answered: “It’s ability to function, now go back to pulling the curlers out of your hair, Maud.”). I like these because it allows me to peer into the psyche of my fellow readers, and see exactly how shallow it can be.

I think my biggest hangup with Slate is it’s over all redundancy. On their front page alone, I can access the same article five different ways, six if it’s still listed on the “Slatest” side bar. This only reeks of lack of content, which is why I normally only pump my brakes here once a day.

If it wasn’t for Farhad Manjoo, I would likely take Slate off my bookmarks.

Cape Cod Times: I don’t want to make this personal, I really don’t. That would hurt my objectivity as well as credibility, but seriously you fucks, that sunrise submission I sent in was TIGHT. And when you compare it to the other crap that was submitted, it makes me feel like someone down in whatever basement at the CCT has been busy jacking off all over everyone’s mail.

Here’s the back story: The CCT asked for reader submissions of photos of sunrises and sunsets. I submitted the following photo:

A few weeks later I checked back and saw that they posted the top 15. Surely I was going to get SOME mention in the top 15. That pic I took, with my iphone no less, was sick.

But no. Out of the 15 they picked, maybe 4 or 5 were better, and after that, maybe 6 total were worth the effort. The rest, including one taken from someone’s couch out of their picture window, blew King Kong Kock.

Now to the rest of your site – it’s terrible. I understand you’re the only daily on Cape, but c’mon dude, you guys are fucking terrible. It’s not like you have any real competition, except for the little dinky local papers, like the Ptown Banner, Barnstable Patriot, etc. But c’mon, make the effort.

Your stories are half researched at best, and usually filled with speculation from your editorial staff. You run incomplete articles that virtually amount to nothing, except a huge waste of time.

For instance, for the last month or six weeks, you’ve been running the same story about how some fire lieutenant is in trouble with the town offices in Bourne. You can’t report why she’s in trouble, or under what circumstances she’s being investigated for, yet you run the story.

It’s fucking gossip dude.

Your Police and Fire Notes are often stuff you guys grab off the scanner. Shooting here, stabbing there, car accident on 6… big deal, it’s so fucking repetitive that I want to go down to your printing shop and instruct all of you on the phenomenal waste of paper you’re generating.

In a world where H1N1, Public Option Health Care, and Misbehaving Children, Their Parents, and Balloons are the norm across the headlines, I was abso-fucking-lutely fucking stunned when I read the following headline in the Times:

Man’s World at White House? No Harm, No Foul, Aides Say

The article, in short, is about how some ULTRA liberals and feminists feel that President Obama is excluding female staff members from events like a pick up game of basketball, golfing, and casual conversation about sports.

Um, if I’m not mistaken, I think there’s still a war going on too, can someone check into that?

I mean, really? Really ladies? Is this really an issue with you? That the President doesn’t invite you gals out to play B-Ball with him? Because if it is, we can certainly make up some customary “feel good” invitations on embroidered envelopes, maybe spray them down with eau du toilet and put them into your mail box with some chocolates, would that make you feel better?

Needless to say, I’m insulted at the fact that certain people, who aren’t even on Mr. Obama’s White House staff, are complaining that there’s a “boy’s club” brewing in the West Wing.

So what, I say. So fucking what?

I hate to come across as Limbaugh-gian/Beck-ian, but these complainers are likely Hillary Votes still scorned by Palinists and are taking their frustrations out on the simple fact that our President is a “dude.” And ‘dudes’ like to play basketball after lunch, talk about last night’s game, drink beer, throw darts, talk about Marcia-in-accounts-payable’s tits, burp, fart, lift weights, shoot guns, ride motorcycles, and spit on midgets.

I’m not saying that there aren’t women out there who would like to do these things with the President as well, but there are in a vast minority, and likely drive trucks, have bicep tattoos and mullets.

The article goes on to explain that women on the White House staff don’t really care about the so-called “boys club,” and treat it as mostly an “eye-roll kind of thing,”- annoyance more than exclusion or even abandonment by the CiC.

And honestly, if Mr. Obama called up Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill, 1st Dist) and was like “hey, come on out and play forward for me this afternoon, I highly doubt the congresswoman would show. Sorry, but it’s the truth.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” would be the response from her office.

Listen, from the top to the bottom, let men be men. This is why we men create “man caves” or “man forts” or whatever we call them. It’s to have a place to be a man without the nagging wife, girlfriend, mistress, mother, sister, daughter, Secretary of State, Congressional Rep, or Feminazi Blogger looking over our shoulders and wondering why we’re cleaning our guns instead of fixing that leaky gutter/radiator/furnace/water heater/child. We just want to be left alone in our cocoons, fiddle with things, read about wars, build ships in bottles, whatever.

Same goes for when we want to go out with just the guys; we need to be around men to help balance out our pHs.

Allow me to speak on behalf of all men out there: We love being around our women, we die to serve you, rub your feets, smell your hair, listen to you bitch about your jobs and about people we only know in passing conversations, yet you think we have intimate knowledge of based on your tales. We really do. But we, as men/guys/dudes, need to go out and carouse drunkenly with each other, eye-rape some college girls, swear loudly, and kick over metal trash cans at odd hours. It allows us to be the high functioning and responsible adult males you know and love and trust with a shotgun left loaded in the closet by your plastic-encased wedding dress.

So in sum, let Mr. Obama have his pick-up games, his spots on ESPN and Letterman, his fist bumps, greasy burgers and cigarettes. He’s not hurting nor alienating anyone. He is a husband of an increasingly determined and strong-willed wife and the father of two adorable little girls. Do you know how much shit he must take for leaving the seat up? And you’re going to try and take away what little the man has left to feel like a guy? You’re a monster.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go pour some Epsom salt into my wife’s foot bath.

So imagine walking into your office and you catch this whiff of some fruity concoction; it’s over powering, destabilizing, and instantly you wonder if someone set off a Febreze bomb in your working space.

With coffee in hand you set your things down and looking back up at you from your desk is Megan Fox, the “it” starlet of the moment, complete with the allure of a flash frozen whore.

Someone left a Cosmopolitan Magazine on my desk, whom I have no idea, since my office is a shared workspace and I do work with members of the opposite sex.

“Cosmo” as it’s called by its utterly slutty readership has a home in America’s beauty salons, high school lockers, and under your little sister’s mattress. I figured I’d go into the magazine and dissect some of it for my readers, because shit, it’s midnight, I’m up, you’re up, wouldn’t you like to know what men think about a magazine that purports to KNOW what men think?

The Cover:
As stated, Megan Fox is on the cover, set on a pink background, she’s wearing a skanky looking pinkish dress, complete with fan-blown hair, and a bunch of gaudy costume jewelry that looks like it was purchased from a local flea market. I do not understand her appeal, only that she’s conventionally hot. I guess she has a new movie coming out, but… whatever.

Of course there’s headlines detailing what’s inside the issue, some of these include “Bad Girl Sex: These 12 Moves Will Show Him Your REALLY Naughty Side. We Call Them The “Dirty Dozen.” This headline will forever ruin the classic war movie of the same name for me. On the same subject, 12 moves? I’m confused because I’ve been having sex for a while, and honestly, there’s really nothing new to discover, at least in my own mind, that a sexual partner, particularly a girl, can do that hasn’t been done in every porno movie I’ve ever watched while only wearing one sock. Girls: here’s the real scoop: Just show up, that’s it. You don’t need “super secret dirty new moves” to impress us. Just… climb on board. Really.

Another headline: “One Question No Guy Can Resist.” … Whatever the fuck that means. Girls, ask a guy any question about himself, or his opinion, and likely he’ll cough up an answer, as long as it pertains to his thoughts regarding sports teams, high school glory days, beer vs. beer, or if he’d be interested in seeing you naked. When it comes to that stuff, we’re usually open books.

The last headline before I move on: “The Sexy Ass Workout: 2 Weeks to Tight Cheeks.” I don’t know what it is about that lede, but it’s so utterly unattractive. Anything with the word “ass” in it just… ugh, and you know, I’m an ass and leg guy too? But seeing it in big bold black letters under Megan Fox’s right tit just… it’s so unclassy. Maybe it harkens to that “Flirty Girl Fitness” commercial I see advertised in the mornings that I’m watching old “Saved By The Bell” episodes. You know the commercial, a handful of strippers prance around with the promise of getting “fit” by doing “sexy” stripper routines in your own living room.

But you know better. You know that the tantalizing bodies on the screens are not the ones doing squats next to their crumb-covered couches at home. No, it’s gross heavy weight housewives lamely attempting to get into some sort of shape in order to seduce their husbands, who will only be closing their eyes and imagining the gyrating girls from the commercial when they get to sticking it.

That said, let’s take a look inside…

I flip through fifteen sum-odd pages, re-wafting that noxious gas back into my office. Every page I turn is an ad for something or other, make up, perfume, clothes…

I’m not surprised or unfamiliar with this, as I read “Esquire” and “Men’s Health” somewhat religiously. Periodicals have to pay the bills I understand, and advertisers know this. If you’re interested in men’s fashion, expect Calvin Klein ads to be littered about your magazine. Women’s mags are no different.

I get to page 18, and on the bottom left corner there’s a picture of three celebs with the title “If You Had To Choose…” with the options of Musicians Jon Legend and Jon Mayer, and actor Jonathon Rhys Meyers, with the option to “shun, shag or marry.” Men play this game too, but it’s typically called “Friend, Fuck or Murder” and it tends to involve female celebrities. But in this case, I would Friend Jon Mayer (I follow him on Twitter), fuck Jon Legend, and probably murder Meyers, only because I hated the two and a half episodes of “The Tudors” I’ve seen.

More ads, more ads….

I come to the article on Ms. Fox, and I’m somewhat confused because the opening pages are photo splashes of her, full body shots, her in flirty tantalizing poses, which makes me flip the magazine back over to make sure I’m still working through an issue of Cosmo and not “Maxim.” I know girls check each other out and probably are more inclined to bi-sexual fantasizing then men (for instance, I doubt I’m going to crack open next month’s “Esquire” and find a spread of a shirtless Alex Rodriquez on bed sheets…). It’s just confusing.

Apparently Ms. Fox has filled out some sort of questionnaire here that they’ve superimposed into the article as filler, because even I’d be hard pressed to get 700 words out on an actress with a pool of talent shallower than anything bought at Kmart.

Information gleaned from the questionnaire: Ms. Fox’s nickname is apparently “bird” which is never explained (maybe it’s explained in the article, but I didn’t bother to read it), her most “tomboyish trait” is her “sailor mouth” which … I’m not sure if it turns me on or makes me think of festering scurvy sores… in another life she was probably a man… According to Ms. Fox the only thing sexier than sex is a Funny Boy (Bobby Hill, watch out!)… her ideal date would be a “sexy sandwich with Andy Samberg and Jonah Hill (first of three times I would throw up in my mouth and be forced to swallow it back down while researching this article) …. The most scared she’s been was when “any time I go on stage – instant diarrhea” (That’s two! I just want to know if she uses the loose 1 dollar bills she’s collected to clean herself up?)… and in ten years she’d like to be “still working.” Megan I hear there’s some prime real estate over at Vh1 on Sunday nights if you’re looking… or Hollywood Square, bottom right, under Bruce Valanch and next to John Stamos’ stunt double.

I skip ahead to the next article, titled “What He’s Really Doing at a Bachelor Party.” I’d like to point out at this time that I’m listening to Tom Waits on my Pandora radio station to help balance out the estrogen that’s bleeding out from this magazine.

From the 350 word article: “The horror stories abound: binge drinking, strippers, lap dances, even full on sex with hookers! You know your guy would never go there… but you also know guys act stupidly when pressured by pals.”

Ok, let me say this: I’ve been to two bachelor parties in my entire life, neither sure as hell involved any sex with hookers, and only one involved a pair of non-English-speaking strippers who engaged in a dyke-fest on the floor of a HVAC shop while a bunch of coked out Colombians cheered them on. Regardless, bachelor parties tend to be kinda lame. There’s a collection of guys, both professional and personal friends of the groom who gather, watch a porno together and drink beer. Usually, by nine-ish the married guys dip out to get back home to the wife and kids, leaving the single guys start getting picked off one by one by the booze fairy around 11ish.

Women: Honestly, you have nothing to fear from a bachelor party.

Also from the article, towards the end: “A good time to drive your point [re: acceptable behavior at the bachelor party] home is right after a good romp, when the love hormone Oxytocin is raging for both of you. Point out that you’re able to try new things in the bedroom because you trust him and know you’re the only one he’s doing stuff like that with.” If you read between the line here ladies, what you’re being told is to let us bareback it with you the night before, so you can say “look I let you hit it raw, you better not go to the party and bring back something nasty that’s going to make my insurance premium sky rocket the next time I get a check up.”

Moving on…

Page 48 has a huge graphic breaking down what’s apparently “Sexy vs. Skanky.” A rhyming break down of acceptable and unacceptable fashion-type behavior. Such helpful advice includes Sexy: “Being edgy” with a picture of the singer Fergie wearing what looks like an over sized t shirt she wore to a razor fight, and Skanky: “Picking Wedgie” where model Victoria Silvstedt, clad in a bikini is digging knuckle deep up her ass to fetch part of her bottoms.

One more: Sexy “Pumped up guys” with a picture of actor Taylor Kitsch, who I think is from the tv show “Friday Night Lights” but I could be mistaken, because I nor anyone else has ever watched a single episode of that show, and Skanky: “Frumped up girls” with a picture of Helena Bonham Carter walking some place wearing what looks like turn of the century bed clothes.

I have a problem with this because Ms. Bonham Carter is a sweetheart and hardly a “skank.” Sure, she often looks like a crazy homeless lady, and I expect her at any second to have some small mammal leap from her hair, but she’s by no means to be lumped into the same circus of painted whores as the entire cast of “The Hills.” She’s a very talented stage actress and will forever be Marla from ‘Fight Club.’ Cosmo, leave the poor woman alone. I’m sure she has mirrors in her very expensive British estate, and she’s aware she leaves the house looking like a bedraggled bus riding bag lady.
More ads… more ads… head starts to spin due to lack of sufficient O2 as office becomes saturated in perfume samples.

I get to a section called “Confessions” where readers submit embarrassing, albeit humorous anecdotes that involved their “V Zones” and an unnaturally high amount of accidents involving fellatio. I chuckle, and figure the bulk of these are at least 50% creative fiction writing exercises, because “hooking up with a real hottie in the bathroom of this club” seldom ever really happens.

I skip ahead again, and now I’m looking at a series of close ups of some dudes eyes, with the headline “4 Truths His Eyes Reveal.” Apparently if you study these four sets of eyes, you’ll be able to read our (men’s) minds.

Not Featured: Hunny, Get Me Another One? – Uplifted eyebrows with hopeful glintUgh, I’m Kinda in The Mood, (But Don’t Feel Like Fucking Around With All That Foreplay) – Squinted eyes, furrowed brow.Please, Shut The Fuck Up – Upturned eyes, towards ceiling, almost asking for god’s hand to come down from the sky and smite thee.I Hate Your Harpy Friends – Red eyes, bared teeth.

I next come across “The Guy Report” with useless information for women to “nudge” guys to do their bidding and to decode eating habits. Of the eating habits “If he routinely finishes his meals long before you do, being in sync and savoring your relationship may not be priorities for him.” Or… or it could mean I’m just fucking hungry because I’ve been at work all day and the last time I ate was at about 9 am this morning which consisted of a piece of wheat toast and a handful of Corn Pops? Lesson: If you have time to over analyze our relationship based purely on how I’m eating, you need to check your insecurity. The fact that I’m sucking down the meal you just made me should be a compliment. The way I look at it, as a guy, if I’m spending my time chit-chatting to you and NOT shoveling a forkful of the meal into my mouth, I’m not interested in the food and if you made dinner, that doesn’t bode well for you, or our “relationship.”

Next page: “Why He Calls You A Nag, When You’re Not.” …Too easy, moving on.

Blah blah blah, fashion accessory stuffy… Pandora is playing some funky shit…lights are blinking around me for some reason… the fear of keeping this magazine open much longer and developing a vagina in the course of writing this article hits my chest with a sudden thud….

The rest of the magazine is basically ads, either in-your-face variety of paid full page ads for hair products or slick-looking “reviews” of products that no doubt the manufacturers paid for to appear in the pages with glowing reviews by some editor.

A picture of Rob Thomas, … he looks like an autistic kid with a flashlight….

Now on to the obligatory sex stuff that is the pride of Cosmopolitan Magazine. A collection of essays, tips, pointers, and pictures of soft core pornography to go along with it all.

Remember earlier when I mentioned that during the research phase for this article I puked in my mouth thricely? Here’s number three:

From the article “Fun Little Tricks Guys Love:” “Use Your Thong as a Hair Tie.” …I’m not even remotely making that up.

It goes on: “There are few things guys like more than long hair, women’s underwear, and sex. So combine all three! If things start getting hot and heavy, stopping the action to go search for a pony tail holder will kill the mood. Instead, grab – or take off – (get read for it…) your underwear. Simply fold the crotch up so that the thong forms an open circle, twist your hair into a low pony tail or bun, and use your panties like an elastic band to secure your locks!”

…Ok. I can almost… ugh… I can almost smell how disgusting of an idea that is.

Let me go out on this note: If I were ever getting frisky with my wife and she … pulled off her underwear to use to tie her fucking hair back, I’d throw her out of bed. Without hesitation, because I figure if she has gone past the point of caring that she’s now wearing her used, hot underwear on her head and still going to have sex with me, she’s either become Helena Bonham Carter or she’s just gone plain crazy.
My wife, and just about every girl I’ve ever been intimate with since about the age 16 has an army of fucking hair ties laying around within reach of her at all times. If there isn’t one already on her wrist, there’s bound to be one on her fucking ankle, or the night stand, or in her pocket or purse or on the floor, on the sink faucet, on the little Buddha in the bathroom, on a toothbrush… you get the idea. And fuck it if you can’t find one… hell, there’s times when I can’t find a condom, but that doesn’t stop us! We just say ‘fuck it’ and keep moving forward.

I refuse to have sex with anything that will wear it’s underwear on its head and still figure I will find it attractive. So fuck you Cosmo, for misleading young women. Watch for next month’s article on how guys apparently think snowballing their come back into their mouths is “sexy.”

Jim is a student of Gonzo Journalism, and the overly opinionated author finds censorship loathsome. Aiding him in his fight to ‘tell it how it is, to you people’ are trusty-yet-beleaguered editors, and an often on break fact checking team.